Sean “Diddy” Combs and disgraced crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried are currently roommates. The unlikely pair are bedding together in a large, “dormitory-style room” at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, according to the New York Times. Combs and Bankman-Fried are also living with “a group of other defendants assigned to the same section.”
Combs has been held in the prison for the last week after being charged with racketeering and sex trafficking. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
His lawyers have attempted to argue that conditions at the prison were too “horrific” for the rapper and mogul, who is confined to his cell for 23 hours a day. In a statement, the federal Bureau of Prisons told the Associated Press, “We also take seriously addressing the staffing and other challenges at MDC Brooklyn.”
Bankman-Fried has been in the same jail since his bail was revoked last year. He was convicted of defrauding his customers at the FTX cryptocurrency exchange of billions of dollars and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The crypto celebrity has previously been housed with an ex-president of Honduras and Mexico’s former secretary of public security.
The MDC, the only federal jail in New York City, has faced problems since it opened in the 1990s. The Associated Press previously reported that “conditions have been so stark that some judges have refused to send people there.” The facility has made efforts this month to address understaffing, though there are still at least 150 vacant positions.
In addition to Combs and Bankman-Fried, inmates at MDC have included singer R. Kelly and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
